October 12 [Mid-terms]
October 12
I woke up a little bit later than I'd meant to, ‘cause I’d kind of had a hard time falling asleep, and I wasn’t sure that I was remembering the Gibbs free energy formula properly, so I got out my book and looked through it to be sure that I was right. Then I started thinking that I was a silly pony, and I’d studied enough and if I didn’t know it now then looking through the book one last time wasn’t going to make me know it.
So I snacked on some hay from the bale, and then I put on all my flight gear and filled up my camelback in the bathroom, and went outside to go flying.
It was kind of cloudy and felt like it wanted to rain.
I called the airplane directors and Dori said that I could go flying up to the clouds, as long as I didn’t cross east of Westnedge Avenue, so I decided that I was going to go west, so that I could get a good feel for them.
The base of the clouds turned out to be just a little more than 2500 feet up, and I explored around their edges. They were fairly new clouds, but they didn’t have enough water in them to rain out, and they all looked about the same as far as I could see. If there’d been a break, I would have tried to get a little bit above them just to make sure that there wasn’t a big anvil towering over one, but I didn’t see any openings in the cloud at all.
When we make storms, we always like to leave some in for pegasuses to fly through, ‘cause that prevents two ponies crashing into each other inside a cloud. It would seem like with all that space in the sky it couldn’t happen, but I’d had a close call once, when a mare going off duty was coming through the middle of a cloud just as I was going on duty. We dodged around each other and shouted apologies and I don't know about her but I was a little more careful when I was passing through clouds after that.
I flew along the 131 Highway all the way until the railroad tracks went under it, and then turned to follow them, descending most of the way back, and I followed them all the way to Academy Street before going up to Trowbridge.
I landed back on the boardwalk just as a boy was coming out, and I think I scared him a little bit. He must not have been expecting me to land. I didn’t recognize him, so I think he was a freshman.
I went back upstairs and made sure that Peggy was awake, then I got undressed and went to the shower, and I reviewed in my head as many equations as I could remember which I hoped was all of them.
Peggy got out of bed when I came back in our dorm room, and she got ready for her shower, and when she was getting dressed, she put on a old t-shirt that she said was her lucky test t-shirt. It was pretty worn out, and really tight on her. She said she’d gotten it her last year of middle school and had worn it to a history test and gotten a hundred percent on it, and since then she’d only worn it for tests. And she said that she’d filled out a little bit since she’d gotten it, but nobody ever complained about that.
We went to breakfast together, and I had scrambled eggs and toast because the waffle maker was still broken and nobody was making omelets. And Christine complained about her mid-terms for most of breakfast, because she thought it was unfair that she had two on the same day, and I wasn’t too happy about it either but then again tonight they’d be done and I wouldn’t have to worry about it, and I thought that she ought to feel the same.
She said that she had another one tomorrow morning, and that did seem cruel.
I started getting a little bit nervous towards the end of breakfast, ‘cause it was getting close to time and I didn’t want to be late but I didn’t want to be too early, either, and just be standing out in the hall. And it was dumb, because I knew what I needed to know, and as soon as I got the test I was going to do well on it, but I couldn’t help worrying just a little bit.
I was glad I’d thought to bring extra clicky pens so I didn’t have to worry about running out of ink. If I had a knife, I could pull out a feather and make an emergency quill, too, and use the ink out of the tubes in the pens if their tips broke.
When I felt like I couldn’t wait any longer, I flew across the quad and to the Dow building, and then had to stand in the hallway until everybody had left the other class. And I couldn’t sit right next to Lisa, ‘cause if we sat too close we could cheat off each other.
Professor Brown passed out the test booklets, and he said that we had until the end of class and we were not allowed to use our books, which I already knew because he’d told us before. And then he wished us luck.
It took me most of the class period to complete my test, because I made sure to read each question very carefully. Sometimes mean professors put in questions that were tricks, to make you give a wrong answer, but he hadn’t. I’d been a bit worried that he might because he’d given us the bad formula in class.
And then I had to check over my answers again, just to make sure that I hadn’t made any dumb mistakes, and that the little writing was easy to read. Maybe unicorns would write equations that needed little words and letters above and below the variables and constants, but nopony else would, ‘cause it was really hard to write that small and still have it be neat. Even some of the people were struggling with it.
After I turned the test in, I was free to go, but I decided that I would wait for Lisa, since she was my lab partner and study buddy and maybe wanted the support. I’d be mad if one of my friends left before I was done, although humans didn’t think like that. So I just sat back in my seat and waited until she’d finished and then the two of us went out in the hall together.
We both agreed that it hadn’t been all that hard of a mid-term, and we shared our answers on a couple of questions, and she sighed in relief when I’d gotten the same answer for the fifth question as she had. She said that she hadn’t been completely sure on it.
She said she was going to go to her room to relax, and I thought I’d fly around a little bit to clear my head. I shouldn’t have, because if there was a bad rainstorm after my next mid-term, I’d have to fly in it, but I needed to do something.
I didn’t feel like putting on my flight gear, especially since it was probably still a bit damp from the morning, so I just went around campus and a little ways over Western’s campus, too, and I let all the thermodynamics go back in my mind so that I’d have room in there for the math.
I tried not to push myself too much, because I didn’t want to have to take another shower, and after I’d been up for almost an hour, mostly lazily gliding around, I landed back on campus and went back to my room long enough to get my notes and math book, and then I went to lunch.
There wasn’t any very good food for lunch, either. I made myself a sandwich, which would have been a lot better if they’d had any flowers to put in it. I hadn’t bought any at Meijer in a long time because they were so expensive and not very good. They had violets but you had to buy the pot and the dirt with them, too, and when I’d looked at them they wanted four dollars for it and there were only three blooms. I guess since it was in the dirt it would grow some more, but if you wanted a good sandwich, you’d need to get a bunch of them.
Everybody was a little bit stressed out, and I leaned up against Meghan and let her pet my mane ‘cause that relaxed both of us, and it seemed like lunch just went by in an instant, and then it was time for me and Sean to leave.
I shouldn’t have been worried about my math mid-term—there wasn’t anything that was too hard or too tricky on it. Sean must have thought so, too, because he was actually done before I was, but I don’t think he went back and checked his answers again. And he didn’t stay behind, but he did nod his head at me when he left the classroom.
So since I didn’t have to rush, I took the time to re-write one of the problems in Equestrian, just for Professor Pampena, and then I turned my test in and left the class.
I went right back to the dorm room because it was getting a little bit cloudier and darker, and I could feel that the humidity was going up, so there was a chance I was going to be flying in a storm tonight which I guess would be a good way to end my mid-terms.
I got out all my flight gear and made sure it was ready, and then I used my portable telephone to send a telegram to Mel, to see if he was going to go stormspotting, and if he needed me. Then I turned on my own computer and looked at the maps, and it was kind of a tricky thing, because rain was almost certain, but it was harder to estimate how much there would be, or whether or not there would be a thunderstorm. It kind of depended on what the clouds did while they were over Lake Michigan.
He sent me a telegram back saying that there was only a ten percent chance of thunderstorms and they weren’t expected to be severe, and that he thought that I didn’t need to come out.
I said that I would, ‘cause I didn’t want to let him down, but he said that unless the forecast changed suddenly, to let this one pass and if it did change, he’d tell me.
So I took a nap, and I woke up when Peggy came back in and she took off her t-shirt and folded it up and said that her lucky t-shirt had done the job again and it was time to give it a break until finals. And she put on a new one that I hadn’t seen her wear before, which said The North Face on it and had a half-rainbow next to it.
She opened up our door in case people wanted to come by and relax, and she opened up the bottom drawer of her dresser which had Oberon bottles in it, and she offered me one, and had one for herself.
It wasn’t too long before Rebekka stopped in, and then Kat came over, too, and we sat around and talked until it was dinnertime.
I thought that I’d better take my flight gear with me just in case, and I was glad that I did, because it started to rain, and then the rain just got heavier and heavier, and even though I hadn’t heard anything from Mel, I decided that I should leave dinner and go flying just to make sure that there wasn’t anything bad coming. Peggy said that I didn’t need to, but I wanted to, and told her that if it lasted for a while I would probably go over to Aric’s house after it had calmed down.
Meghan helped me get dressed and asked if I should be flying on a full stomach, and I told her that I hadn’t eaten all that much, and I would be okay. And then I went outside and called up the airplane directors while I was still on the porch of Hicks, but I was still getting wet because the wind was pushing the rain around.
After I got permission, I flew out and I hadn’t gotten too high before I could barely see the college because of how fast it was coming down. And since I’d gone late, after it had started, I wouldn’t be able to see what was coming next until it was right on top of me, unless the airplane directors let me go through the clouds, but I didn’t think that they would.
I flew mostly into the wind, both so I wouldn’t lose too much ground position and so I would have the most amount of time to report if something bad was coming. And I went all the way up to the base of the clouds and felt around them until I knew them, and then I just lost myself in the sky and the storm.
It never got too bad. There were bursts of intense rain, but it was mostly fairly steady, and sometimes when it wasn’t really coming down, I had pretty good visibility.
I had to pay close attention to my watch, just to make sure that it wasn’t blowing me towards the airport. A lot of airplanes were allowed to go through the clouds, and while they probably wouldn’t be flying by the college, an airplane had special instruments so that it could land at the airport in weather like this, and I wouldn’t see it coming at all. If the rain was heavy enough, I might not even hear it.
With my watch giving me the bearing and distance to the airport, I had a pretty good idea where I was, so when the rain finally lightened up and I could feel the clouds towards the tail end of the storm that hardly had any energy or rain in them, I dropped back down until I could see enough of the ground to figure out exactly where I was, and then flew over to Aric’s house.
I was completely soaked, and a little bit tired from all the flying, but I felt pretty good anyway, and i got most of the water shaken off outside of his house.
He got out some towels for me and put them on the couch, and we watched a movie that he had which was called The Great Escape, and it was about a bunch of prisoners who were being held by the Nazis that wanted to escape, and so they dug tunnels under their bunkhouses and hid the dirt in gardens, and they also tried to sneak out in trucks and by making fake Nazi uniforms and they were all very clever. I wouldn’t like the tunnel, but maybe if that was the only way to get out, I would try it.
He told me it was a classic movie and it was based on a true story. And he said that it wasn’t the only big wartime escape, because American and British soldiers thought it was their duty to try and escape to make the Nazis spend as much time and effort as possible to find them again.
We went up to his room after the movie was over. I was mostly dried off, and I had to preen my wings, ‘cause being wrapped up in a towel like that had messed up some of the feathers.
They were gonna get messed up a little bit again, but at least they’d have been mostly right to start with.
I asked him if he minded if I left before lunch tomorrow, ‘cause I wanted to sit with Leon and Cedric and find out for sure what the plan for the weekend was, plus I had to read some of the Bible because I didn’t want to have to admit to Pastor Liz that I’d had a week and hadn’t even opened it. And he said that that was okay, and to let him know what the weekend plan was, too, and I said that I would. He said that he’d like to do something fun with me and Meghan again.
Then I helped him get undressed for bed, and I didn’t even wait for him to get in bed; I stretched out with my hindquarters hanging off and he asked me if I was sure, because this was a new thing, and I said that I was, so he got behind me and got into position. He could lean over and rest his hands on the bed if he had to, but he also ran them down my back and sides and across my flanks, and I didn’t really have any control of what he did at all, which made it more exciting.
He was a little bit cold when he finally got in bed with me, though, and my rear legs were a little bit numb from dangling off the bed like that. He said next time we tried that maybe he’d want to wear at least a shirt, so I got on top of him and he asked if I wanted to go again, because he wasn’t really ready at all, and I said that I was helping to warm him back up.
And he put his arms around me to help hold me in place, and I tucked my head right against his chin, and fell asleep like that.
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Well, the guys and some of the girls won't for certain.
Kalamazoo Gazette on October 13:
PEGASUS EXCHANGE STUDENT TACKLED BY SECURITY
SCHOOL: STUDENT ATTEMPTED SELF-MULTILATION
Aaaand all the paperwork to end all paperwork for Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn.
Does Silver Glow like winter weather? Because if so, she'll love December.
How to make a writing quill. Just like the dream catchers, that could be a fun project during her coming moult.
Its interesting to see just how strong Silvers desire to protect all her friends from the weather is despite it being largely unneeded on earth. Sooner of later she'd going to have a major conflict between having to do something important in her school or social life and a storm coming through at the same time.
How would making a quill help if she ran out of ink? Are pegasus feathers impregnated with ink?
Someone should show her "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron" I suspect it probably came out just before contact with Equestria was made, so it would be an interesting artifact, double so as the main character is a horse.
Kalamazoo student attempts to profit on midterms with a bald buisiness proposal.
At least Silver has a heads up on Everything. With Genesis.
Still trying that Earth weather. Given what it can do, hope she looks out. Oh look, Wizard of Oz remake. Flying Shack.
any openings
I don't remember taking any exam where I was even allowed to stay after completing it.
But I do remember waiting for my friend(s) outside.
The dropmare strikes again!
Least of all Silver.
No Silver, don't try to make a quill. Hopefully she doesn't have an encounter with zero tolerance policies.
Say... we know Silver does thunderstorms, but does she do snowstorms or blizzards? 'Cause you've indicated that this story takes place in 2016, and according to the weather map, Kalamazoo is about to get dumped on in about an hour or two as of the time of this post. Plus, my area is supposed to get a nasty blizzard on Christmas, and anything big that hits here often hits there, too, a few hours later. I imagine it's going to be even worse, though, due to the lake effect multiplying the amount of precipitation.
Of course, I imagine with wing ice being a likely hazard, Equestrian wild blizzards would likely require special training as well as safety equipment and/or anti-ice enchantment spells from a unicorn teammate.
any openings at all.
7795423
That's very true. SIlver Glow doesn't mind, either.
That would be a really funny misunderstanding.
You know that Twilight's gonna do that sometime.
7795461
Of course she does! Snow and snowboarding and rolling around in the snow and making snowponies . . . plus, unlike humans, she grows a shaggy winter coat to help keep her warm, so she won't even have to bundle up.
7795692
Although some people are probably going to think it strange that she's using her own feathers for a quill. Rebekka will probably approve, though.
7795796
That's probably a dilemma that pegasi face all the time in Equestria, or at least the ones who have to deal with feral weather. She knows that school is more important than the weather, so it will take priority, but she's likely to put weather ahead of other social obligations, because that what she'd do in Equestria.
7796288
She could try and get it out of the pens that she has. Although that probably should have been more clear.
IIRC, there was one story where Twilight found out that Owlowiscious' feathers were impregnated with ink.
7796426
That's a movie that I need to watch. She's about to have some free time, because classes end before Thanksgiving, so maybe she'll be able to watch some more movies.
7796593
Luckily for her, tornado season in Michigan is over. Not that she could do much against a tornado except watch and see where it goes.
7797480
You know, I'm not sure. I never tried to stay after an exam was done, so I don't know what the professor would have said if I went back to my seat rather than escaping to freedom.
7797839
That's very true. Silver doesn't mind one bit.
7813527
I don't know if K has them now, but back when I was a student, they didn't, at least not for reasonable things. I always carried a multi-tool on my belt, complete with knife blade and bone saw, and nobody ever said anything about it. And with our stage combat group, we were always carrying swords at U of M. Apparently, some bus drivers had a problem with that, but I never rode the bus there so I didn't have to deal with it.
7814801
She'll probably fly in snowstorms, although as far as I know, they generally don't call the stormwatchers out for them, since they're usually not severe in the same way that thunderstorms can be. And Kalamazoo is used to being dumped on by snowstorms, too.
I'm not sure if wing-icing would be that much of an issue. Some airplanes deal with it by having flexible boots that crack the ice off, and I would think that a pegasus flapping her wings would have the same effect. Although it might be unpleasant, and she'd have a lot of ice other places.
7821157
Correction made; thank you!
Not sure if that should be "any airplane could" or "and airplanes could"
8265811
Not sure if that should be "any airplane could" or "and airplanes could"
Yeah, that was worded pretty badly. Thanks!
The gist was that airplanes could fly low through clouds near the airport and run into her, but they weren't allowed to over campus.
https://www.tvguide.com/movies/chicken-run/video/134327/chicken-run-official-trailer-24446543/
Should have watched that one next
9369326
Correction made; thank you!
Ooh, that would’ve been a good one.
Every time you mention Western's campus, I can't help but picture my alma mater in London, Ontario. I think Silver Glow would have been very welcome on that campus.
10339637
I should mention, ‘cause lots of people--even locals--get them confused: Western and Kalamazoo College are two different universities. K has all the cool, historical brick buildings and is a small campus; Western is mostly a typical sprawling modern college. I’m sure they have some historical buildings; Western was founded in 1903, but from my perspective as a K-College alum, they’re the johnny-come-lately in Kalamazoo (K-College was founded in 1833, four years before Michigan became a state . . . in the interests of full disclosure, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor was the first Michigan college, founded in 1817).
Having said that, I did some quick research on Western University, and I don’t disagree. That would also be a good college for a pony to attend.
Also, as a point of interest, my brother used to live and work in London, Ontario.
I would very much like to see the look on Twilight's face when she first realized that was possible.
11220635
Somebody did a cartoon where she did, and then wound up plucking off all her feathers to make quills.
Overthinking it there, MacGyver.